Anyways regarding Estonia, I´ve never disliked Estonians in any way and I really don´t see them as a threat. I see Estonia´s rapid economic growth as an opportunity which we in Finland also can benefit from.

I think they’ll get things like dental care resolved. And I’m pretty sure Estonia is committed to providing a full range of basic services for its entire population. It’s not designed as an everyone-for-themselves system.

The only real difference is in the way it’s financing these services—low tax rates which spur economic growth and thereby create greater overall tax revenue.

Also, if Estonia has the same tiered healthcare system that’s been adopted by most of its eastern neighbors, then revenue from its private component will help fund the public component. I think all of these countries determined that it was the only way to assure the best healthcare for everyone.

The same argument applies for pensions.

It’s a balancing act though. If corporate special interests have opportunities to hook-into Estonia’s political system, then public services might suffer. I don’t think it’s likely though, due to the coalition government system that’s in place.

By virtue, the fragmentation of coalition systems keep these things in-check. And so do the voters.

Indeed. For example child labor is forbidden.

Estonia does offer social services. There is this myth (Phil buys it too) that Estonia is some sort of neoliberal oasis. It’s false. Estonians (mostly) don’t have to pay for higher education (unlike in the US where ‘state’ colleges are still expensive as hell), and Estonians (mostly) don’t have to pay for healthcare (although dental care sadly is not covered).

Estonians get a lot of benefits that the social welfare states also offer their citizens.

That being said, Estonia was dirt poor in 1991. Many parts of the country still are quite poor. The idea of instituting a ‘Nordic’ social welfare model in Estonia in 1991 would have been just plain DUMB.

As one wise man once said, you can’t redistribute wealth if you don’t have any.

The tax should be abolished altogether and let the problem take care of itself.

You know, so all Europeans can pay high prices for Finland’s ‘alcohol problem.’ The ‘problem’ of course being that Finns can go to Estonia for cheaper liquor.

http://virtual.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=13058&group=Politics

Dammit, I’m a grandson of one Karelian “ryssä” and one Estonian. It is not costing me a single cent, if the Estonians do well. More power to them, if they manage to show that the Nordic model is not the end of history, even at these latitudes.

The best way I learn outside of that is just reading the newspapers and watching programs and movies in Estonian…

read postimees – http://www.postimees.ee – it’s a good newspaper.

BTW don’t learn to drive like the Estonians…
(Have you seen last year’s numbers? Really scary traffic death statistics)

I have been trying to learn to speak like the northern Estonians because it is more fun, and the southern Estonian men all have these bassy voices, which I can’t emulate (and have a hard time understanding).

But I got a CD from a group called Hedningarna called “Karelia Visa” and I have to say that even with a basic knowledge of Estonian I could understand some of the Karelian lyrics. The bottom line – they are all pretty similar languages.

When I sit behind a Finn on a plane it’s like parts of their dialogues are totally understandable and then they go off into parts I don’t understand. And I am an American learning Estonian as a second language.

Actually, at least in the linguistic sense it might be that people from the Finland proper are very close to Estonians. Some people say that the southwestern Finns speak in dialects that are closer to estonian than the dialects of finnish spoken in the eastern Finland.

Aboy, you are one of my favorite commentators but I still insist that I love Estonians even more than turkulaisia. They are to me like an alian civilization to a astronomer – I am not alone after all.